Anna Malagrida
26 Aug - 23 Oct 2010
ANNA MALAGRIDA
"Vistas Veladas"
26. August - 23. October 2010
In the photographs by the Spanish artist, Anna Malagrida, everything
seems to address the relationship between interior and exterior, the
dualism of private and public space. By intentionally disallowing the
gaze to penetrate the surface and instead focusing on reflections in
large glass plates, she forsakes any represen tation of reality, rendering
the external world illusion. Anna Malagrida looks from hotel windows
onto urban structures with her camera, at street level into storefront
windows covered up for renovation, or in the Jordanian desert onto
stone huts - and occasionally, she looks out of these from within.
While her storefront photographs are conceived as primarily planar
images, Malagrida depicts architecture in and outside of the Jordan's
capital Amman as spatial bodies with the requisite spatial depth. The
minuscule houses in the desert consisting of but a room, window and
door, appear provisional and incomplete. Decorative forms or even a
coat of whitewashing are scarce, leaving their bare, brick structure to
function as an architectonic skin. Occasionally, a reinforcing bar juts
out of a wall, bent and unmotivated, indicative of an intended extension
such as a second floor or roof construction. At first, the choice of
motif might seem surprising. However, when we regard the pictures
as a sequence, the photographer's systematic method is revealed as
she portrays each building in its individuality. The metaphoric content
of her photographs necessitates a second level of observation.
The city photographs from 2006 are reduced in their colour, the architectural
images reduced in their content. The sun seldom shines, the
sky above the desert seems to maintain its daybreak haze, rain
clouds hang occasionally over the sky. Only once do we notice a
strong cast shadow next to a building - something not unexpected for
the desert. The small beige stone huts seem to grow out of the sandy
stony ground. There is neither street nor sidewalk nor any apparent
infrastructure. The sanctuaries stand in the inhospitable nothingness
of the steppe. In this context of greatest isolation, culture and nature
are reduced as much as the factors of time and the everyday. The
buildings serve as individual protection; as such they are staged by
Anna Malagrida like the Greek temples of the 19th century were by
travel photographers, namely as stately official buildings.
But this is hardly the case in the Jordanian desert, and whether or
not one should even speak of architecture in this case is debatable. The
minimal, even primitive huts seldom reveal creative or individualized
details; there is rarely a right angle between floors and walls, and any
structural variation among the buildings is hardly apparent. They seem
to be built according to rather purist building principles; the artist herself
speaks of her fascination for these "elementary constructions".
Today, in the famous Jordanian desert Wadi Rum, where Lawrence of Arabia once fought, one may find Bedouin-like vacation settlements along the gigantic cliff formations. The Bedouins have influenced the image of the desert for ages with their tents, although nowadays they are seldom itinerant. The tent material is dyed black, keeping the interior dark during the day. Stone buildings in the desert seem alien against this background, while inside the Bedouin camps they serve at the most as toilet or showering facilities. This profane usage has nothing in common with Malagrida's sanctuaries. On the contrary; the stone huts gain metaphorical significance from the photographer's affirmative image series.
In her video "Danza de Mujer" [Woman Dance] from 2006 we see a dark cloth fluttering in the wind and hear corresponding wind and flapping noises. We are inside one of the stone sanctuaries. The darkened window places the interior in formal contrast to the "white city" of Amman. Light and dark, inside and outside, withdrawal and representation - as seen here, these are the opposing pairs that make Malagrida's work so multifaceted.
While many of her photographs are characterized by a pointed inertness, the video is brought to life solely from the slight movements of the black cloth. Here, as well, the focus seems to be on the apparently banal interplay between wind and stillness, light and darkness. But just a few seconds of the three-and-a-half-minute video loop the contemplative idea becomes visually captivating, similar to the surging waves at the beach or the crackling of burning wood in a fireplace.
The fluttering cloth is a perpetual dance, like a veiled belly dance, which weaves yet another signification into the image. Many Arabic countries uphold as tradition - or necessity - the veil to conceal the female body in public. Here the small house with the "veiled" window might stand for the (Jordanian) woman, according to the artist, who has consequently selected an appropriately descriptive title for the photo series created parallel to the video work: "Vistas Veladas" [Fogged Views]. The use of the head scarf has been variously significant throughout the history of mankind: as protection (from storms), for hygienic reasons as well as for cultural and religious purposes. As Western Europeans, we differentiate between wearing a headscarf and the further veiling of face and body. Elsewhere, however, such as in Jordan, the degrees of concealment seem more blurred, particularly with respect to the cultural self-image of women.
It is formally interesting and even paradoxical that the structure of the window bars in Mala grida's film becomes first visible when the bars are covered by the cloth. It is only after the semitransparent material dampens the brilliance of the sun that the video camera with its automated exposure mechanism can clearly depict the metallic structure behind the cloth. As a motif, the bars are as equally ambivalent as the veil; it offers protection against eventual intruders and is simultaneously an image associated with imprisonment.
The motif of the window in the history of art and photography is associated with an opening onto the world. This visual tradition is contradicted by Malagrida's Parisian storefront window series as well as her overexposed views of the buildings in Amman. The reflections throw our gaze back at us; we do not look at something or through something, but rather at ourselves, even if we (or the photographer for us) are not to be seen. Here the person remains invisible, although this does not apply to all of Malagrida's works. One could perceive the reflections as distortions of a society in constant (economic) change, an interpretation fitting to a critical approach by the artist who has selected a convincing aesthetic form to express this. Everything oscillates between reality and orchestration; of particular fascination is the optically opaque layer on or behind the storefront windows in Paris along with the markings on or behind them that seem here like abstract informal paintings, or elsewhere - such as in an abandoned hotel project in northern Spain - as specific, graffiti-like statements.
Other, unusually low-contrast street scenes were realized in Jordan. As often is the case in the history of photography, here, too it was coincidence or rather a blunder, which led to the formal visual solution. Because of an x-ray security check of Malagrida's films in a Jordanian hotel, the resulting prints were completely overexposed. The photographer, however, recognized the visual strength of the inappropriately exposed images, embraced their shortcomings and published the motifs in two editions. The city of millions was transformed in her photographs into a pale white, ghostly apparition. Looking out upon it, the city seems to be covered by a gossamer veil. In 2007, Malagrida simply cast her gaze from the huge windows of various luxury hotels in Amman, such as the Radisson, Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt and Holiday Inn, onto the surrounding urban housing developments in 2007. The immediate vicinity of the hotels reveals both the disparities as well as the connection between the Western and Arab world, between Occident and Orient. Some of the photographs are bordered by a heavy curtain on the leftand right-hand sides, which open up onto the urban. The juxtaposition of soft cloth in strong, dark colours of the interior, and the nearly repelling blazing light of the city could not be more extreme. Through the framing drapery, our attention is drawn deep into the centre of the image, only to return again to its edges.
A decisive role is played by the glass window - the thin, transparent layer separating the inhospitable heat from the comfort of the climatised hotel rooms. Here there are few traces of human beings, although this is different in other photographic series by the artist, where the window pane is also a carrier of information: linguistic or visual testaments by unknown individuals from various layers of time that could occasionally even be in reaction to one another. In an art work such as this, the at times delicate or otherwise crudely treated surfaces could be read as art historical, self-referential gestures. Like a film director, Anna Malagrida subtly constructs a narrative tension, allowing us as recipients to later interpret and decipher the situations that are mostly found, yet which on occasion are created by the artist. Nonetheless, her preferred artistic medium remains photography.
She metaphorically questions the transparency of glass and cloth, as well as the role of the woman in Arabic society. The traces of time are constant companions of her seemingly timeless photographs, which could easily have been taken years before - or years later. It is not a testament to the times that occurs here before our eyes, but rather the individual gaze, which subjectively and artistically regards fragments of everyday reality. Anna Malagrida has created and continues to create symbolic and aesthetically compressed works that - once we have seen them - never let us go.
Matthias Harder
"Vistas Veladas"
26. August - 23. October 2010
In the photographs by the Spanish artist, Anna Malagrida, everything
seems to address the relationship between interior and exterior, the
dualism of private and public space. By intentionally disallowing the
gaze to penetrate the surface and instead focusing on reflections in
large glass plates, she forsakes any represen tation of reality, rendering
the external world illusion. Anna Malagrida looks from hotel windows
onto urban structures with her camera, at street level into storefront
windows covered up for renovation, or in the Jordanian desert onto
stone huts - and occasionally, she looks out of these from within.
While her storefront photographs are conceived as primarily planar
images, Malagrida depicts architecture in and outside of the Jordan's
capital Amman as spatial bodies with the requisite spatial depth. The
minuscule houses in the desert consisting of but a room, window and
door, appear provisional and incomplete. Decorative forms or even a
coat of whitewashing are scarce, leaving their bare, brick structure to
function as an architectonic skin. Occasionally, a reinforcing bar juts
out of a wall, bent and unmotivated, indicative of an intended extension
such as a second floor or roof construction. At first, the choice of
motif might seem surprising. However, when we regard the pictures
as a sequence, the photographer's systematic method is revealed as
she portrays each building in its individuality. The metaphoric content
of her photographs necessitates a second level of observation.
The city photographs from 2006 are reduced in their colour, the architectural
images reduced in their content. The sun seldom shines, the
sky above the desert seems to maintain its daybreak haze, rain
clouds hang occasionally over the sky. Only once do we notice a
strong cast shadow next to a building - something not unexpected for
the desert. The small beige stone huts seem to grow out of the sandy
stony ground. There is neither street nor sidewalk nor any apparent
infrastructure. The sanctuaries stand in the inhospitable nothingness
of the steppe. In this context of greatest isolation, culture and nature
are reduced as much as the factors of time and the everyday. The
buildings serve as individual protection; as such they are staged by
Anna Malagrida like the Greek temples of the 19th century were by
travel photographers, namely as stately official buildings.
But this is hardly the case in the Jordanian desert, and whether or
not one should even speak of architecture in this case is debatable. The
minimal, even primitive huts seldom reveal creative or individualized
details; there is rarely a right angle between floors and walls, and any
structural variation among the buildings is hardly apparent. They seem
to be built according to rather purist building principles; the artist herself
speaks of her fascination for these "elementary constructions".
Today, in the famous Jordanian desert Wadi Rum, where Lawrence of Arabia once fought, one may find Bedouin-like vacation settlements along the gigantic cliff formations. The Bedouins have influenced the image of the desert for ages with their tents, although nowadays they are seldom itinerant. The tent material is dyed black, keeping the interior dark during the day. Stone buildings in the desert seem alien against this background, while inside the Bedouin camps they serve at the most as toilet or showering facilities. This profane usage has nothing in common with Malagrida's sanctuaries. On the contrary; the stone huts gain metaphorical significance from the photographer's affirmative image series.
In her video "Danza de Mujer" [Woman Dance] from 2006 we see a dark cloth fluttering in the wind and hear corresponding wind and flapping noises. We are inside one of the stone sanctuaries. The darkened window places the interior in formal contrast to the "white city" of Amman. Light and dark, inside and outside, withdrawal and representation - as seen here, these are the opposing pairs that make Malagrida's work so multifaceted.
While many of her photographs are characterized by a pointed inertness, the video is brought to life solely from the slight movements of the black cloth. Here, as well, the focus seems to be on the apparently banal interplay between wind and stillness, light and darkness. But just a few seconds of the three-and-a-half-minute video loop the contemplative idea becomes visually captivating, similar to the surging waves at the beach or the crackling of burning wood in a fireplace.
The fluttering cloth is a perpetual dance, like a veiled belly dance, which weaves yet another signification into the image. Many Arabic countries uphold as tradition - or necessity - the veil to conceal the female body in public. Here the small house with the "veiled" window might stand for the (Jordanian) woman, according to the artist, who has consequently selected an appropriately descriptive title for the photo series created parallel to the video work: "Vistas Veladas" [Fogged Views]. The use of the head scarf has been variously significant throughout the history of mankind: as protection (from storms), for hygienic reasons as well as for cultural and religious purposes. As Western Europeans, we differentiate between wearing a headscarf and the further veiling of face and body. Elsewhere, however, such as in Jordan, the degrees of concealment seem more blurred, particularly with respect to the cultural self-image of women.
It is formally interesting and even paradoxical that the structure of the window bars in Mala grida's film becomes first visible when the bars are covered by the cloth. It is only after the semitransparent material dampens the brilliance of the sun that the video camera with its automated exposure mechanism can clearly depict the metallic structure behind the cloth. As a motif, the bars are as equally ambivalent as the veil; it offers protection against eventual intruders and is simultaneously an image associated with imprisonment.
The motif of the window in the history of art and photography is associated with an opening onto the world. This visual tradition is contradicted by Malagrida's Parisian storefront window series as well as her overexposed views of the buildings in Amman. The reflections throw our gaze back at us; we do not look at something or through something, but rather at ourselves, even if we (or the photographer for us) are not to be seen. Here the person remains invisible, although this does not apply to all of Malagrida's works. One could perceive the reflections as distortions of a society in constant (economic) change, an interpretation fitting to a critical approach by the artist who has selected a convincing aesthetic form to express this. Everything oscillates between reality and orchestration; of particular fascination is the optically opaque layer on or behind the storefront windows in Paris along with the markings on or behind them that seem here like abstract informal paintings, or elsewhere - such as in an abandoned hotel project in northern Spain - as specific, graffiti-like statements.
Other, unusually low-contrast street scenes were realized in Jordan. As often is the case in the history of photography, here, too it was coincidence or rather a blunder, which led to the formal visual solution. Because of an x-ray security check of Malagrida's films in a Jordanian hotel, the resulting prints were completely overexposed. The photographer, however, recognized the visual strength of the inappropriately exposed images, embraced their shortcomings and published the motifs in two editions. The city of millions was transformed in her photographs into a pale white, ghostly apparition. Looking out upon it, the city seems to be covered by a gossamer veil. In 2007, Malagrida simply cast her gaze from the huge windows of various luxury hotels in Amman, such as the Radisson, Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt and Holiday Inn, onto the surrounding urban housing developments in 2007. The immediate vicinity of the hotels reveals both the disparities as well as the connection between the Western and Arab world, between Occident and Orient. Some of the photographs are bordered by a heavy curtain on the leftand right-hand sides, which open up onto the urban. The juxtaposition of soft cloth in strong, dark colours of the interior, and the nearly repelling blazing light of the city could not be more extreme. Through the framing drapery, our attention is drawn deep into the centre of the image, only to return again to its edges.
A decisive role is played by the glass window - the thin, transparent layer separating the inhospitable heat from the comfort of the climatised hotel rooms. Here there are few traces of human beings, although this is different in other photographic series by the artist, where the window pane is also a carrier of information: linguistic or visual testaments by unknown individuals from various layers of time that could occasionally even be in reaction to one another. In an art work such as this, the at times delicate or otherwise crudely treated surfaces could be read as art historical, self-referential gestures. Like a film director, Anna Malagrida subtly constructs a narrative tension, allowing us as recipients to later interpret and decipher the situations that are mostly found, yet which on occasion are created by the artist. Nonetheless, her preferred artistic medium remains photography.
She metaphorically questions the transparency of glass and cloth, as well as the role of the woman in Arabic society. The traces of time are constant companions of her seemingly timeless photographs, which could easily have been taken years before - or years later. It is not a testament to the times that occurs here before our eyes, but rather the individual gaze, which subjectively and artistically regards fragments of everyday reality. Anna Malagrida has created and continues to create symbolic and aesthetically compressed works that - once we have seen them - never let us go.
Matthias Harder